


Unison

by cal1brations



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Established Relationship, Exhaustion, M/M, Protectiveness, Shippy Gen, er... not much... else....
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 08:51:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5702401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cal1brations/pseuds/cal1brations
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>“You’re not gonna make it if we try to clear out somewhere for the night."</p>
</blockquote>In which the Sole Survivor would rather pass out from exhaustion with Hancock at his side rather than follow any means of logic. Ha. What a sappy piece of shit.
            </blockquote>





	Unison

Generally, when they’re out on the road, they try to rest near settlements, cities, anything with people and supplies. It’s mostly because Nate is, obviously, human, and humans need many more things than Ghouls need. Fresh water, non-radiated foods, _sleep_ — fickle things that one can’t exactly find out in the middle of old city ruins and collapsed buildings.

However, things are often… displeasing. Difficult, really.

Usually this is when Nate is too tired to see straight, on his last legs, and the guards at the gate of wherever the fuck they’ve stumbled into decide, with a haughty air that makes Hancock grit his teeth, that this is a _Ghoul-free_ community, and if Nate wants to get in here, the Ghoul stays _out_. How they can say this to a guy who’s looking half-dead, slumped against the Ghoul in question without the ability to keep upright completely on his own legs, Hancock doesn’t know, but he _does_ know what comes next, because every time this is a problem, Nate always comes to the same damn solution.

Nate, always, finds some inner strength or something equally unbelievable, and turns right around and (exhaustedly) stalks away.

Ordinarily, if he weren’t about to pass out on his feet, Nate might try to convince the guards to let them in; after popping a few handfuls of Mentats, that is. But there are times where Nate can do little more than grunt and nod the things that absolutely require a response, and Hancock thinks it’s too weird, anyway, when Nate does the talking for him like that.

No one has before, anyway. _Hancock_ has always been the smooth-talker.

Maybe he’s a little jealous Nate’s finally getting in on his game, but he’s pretty sure it’s because he knows things won’t change, don’t change for the better, anyway, when it comes to Ghouls. But Nate tries, and that’s… something. Sincere, maybe.

Definitely a pain in the ass, though, Hancock quickly reminds himself when Nate collapses. Hancock quickly starts trying to help him up.

“C’mon, big guy,” Hancock grunts with strain as he hooks Nate’s arm over his shoulders to try and lift him up; Hancock is not the strongest Ghoul around, but he can afford put a bit more backbone into efforts involving Nate. The guy is as priceless as he is kind (that is, extremely so). “Let’s get you back to Baker—you can live without me for a night.”

Nate grunts his discontent with this idea, and they struggle a little when Nate pulls away from Hancock while Hancock is trying to get him up. Nate is a pretty big guy, so his struggling definitely poses a problem for Hancock’s severely less-muscled self.

“What?” Hancock asks as he watches Nate flop down in the what would have been gutter. It’s a horribly pathetic look for all six-foot-one burly inches of him, slouched down like that in the ruined street, arm slung around a piece of cement jutting up beside him.

Hancock sighs, with the barest hint of annoyance behind the sound. “You’re not gonna make it if we try to clear out somewhere for the night. The safest bet for now is—“

“ _No_ ,” Nate grits out between his teeth, and Hancock is absolutely stunned at how venomous the word sounds coming from him. Almost like Psycho-laced battle screams—and with the unfocused look in Nate’s eye, it could easily be mistaken for one, except for the fact Hancock knows Nate injected the only two Psycho hits they were carrying earlier on in their trip.

Hancock is still, in the mildest terms, peeved.

“No?” He echoes, watching Nate’s head loll a bit. He’s seriously exhausted, beat up and probably ravenous, but yet he chooses—because Nate made the choice to turn around and walk away from the gate _all_ on his own, thanks very much—to sit here in the gutter, probably resisting the urge to slouch to the side and fall asleep on the ruined pavement. “You’re fuckin’ with me, right? Whaddaya mean, “ _no_ ”?”

He has to wait a long moment, but the reply comes out of Nate with great conviction in his tone. “Not leavin’ you behind like that.”

If Hancock still had hair, he’d be yanking at it right now.

Instead, he takes in a deep breath and, yes, sighs once more, deflating a little with the loud exhale. Nate gives him a very filthy glare—though part of the vicious look in his eyes is probably due to the dark bags underneath them. They stare at each other for a long moment, a battle of wills, before Nate decides getting up from the gutter is what he wants to do next.

Hancock doesn’t help him up, only in order to make his point.

When Nate is on his feet once more (nearly a whole minute or so later), Hancock nods at him in gesture. “You ain’t gonna last long enough to set up c—“

“Shut _up_ ,” Nate mumbles in a long-suffering sigh, and Hancock sincerely isn’t sure how _Nate_ could be the irked one here. Nate isn’t the one watching his partner drag himself around haphazardly in uncertain territory, just for the sake of his inconvenient Ghoul companion.

Nate takes a few heavy steps forward, then turns around (looking practically concussed) as he grunts at Hancock’s stillness. “Let’s just _go_ , Hancock,” Nate tells him, voice far more exhausted than any man should ever sound. “There was a place a couple blocks back.”

Hancock is torn, because the _right_ thing to do is to march Nate’s sole-surviving ass right back to those city gates and shove him in with a smack on said ass, probably, and wait until tomorrow to return for him. However, the thing that is apparently going to happen is this, with Nate leading the way with staggering, exhausted steps, back up the road they came from whilst checking in empty, ruined buildings for a suitable place to hunker down for the night.

Despite his displeasure with the solution, Hancock stays tight to Nate’s side, rifle at the ready; the gunshots he can faintly make out in the distance are certainly enough to keep him wary, though Nate hardly seems attentive to the soft booms and bangs in the night.

Eventually, they end up in front of… a shop of something from the past, Hancock can’t really tell what it all is, but up the stairs is a small apartment with a surprising amount of walls, which are not always so common in these old ruins of ancient (“They’re not _ancient_ , Hancock—I’m not ancient, either!” Nate always defends) cities.

Hancock picks up the slack he’s had for the past half-hour, moving to check the rooms for any unwelcome roommates before setting up in the back bedroom for Nate, which mostly includes dragging an old mattress from one of the other rooms back to their spot for the night and watching Nate collapse on the damn thing before Hancock even sets it down on the ground.

He snorts, amused as Nate groans with relief, and moves to sit beside him, facing the rest of the flat with his gun set at his feet.

Because Nate needs sleep, while Hancock really does not, it is Hancock’s duty to keep watch while Nate rests, because Hancock knows how to handle himself and because, well, it’s _nice_ to give the guy a break sometimes. Someone who’s always running around, doing errands for everyone else in the midst of his own personal shitshow—a good night’s sleep is something Nate seriously deserves.

Hancock looks to Nate as he feels him shift, and smiles a bit to feel the guy curling around him, his body a loose C-shape around Hancock sitting beside him. He’s already got his eyes closed, but Hancock can tell he’s not quite asleep yet, especially when he starts mumbling.

“This is—“ a giant yawn, “ _much_ better than Baker.” Nate presses his face to the dusty mattress, curls a little bit more around Hancock, enough so that Hancock can feel every inch of Nate curled around his waist.

Hancock chuckles. “You’re really kind of a freak, aren’cha,” he mumbles, fondly so, and feels Nate’s sleep-heavy hand slap his side tiredly, which only makes Hancock snort out another laugh.

They both fall quiet, then, and Hancock figures Nate has finally fallen asleep, until Nate makes a little groan as he settles into the mattress a little more. He slurs out an almost-incomprehensible, “ _Night_ ,” that Hancock smiles at, before focusing his gaze back out in the hall, towards the window in the edge of his view from here on the mattress with Nate.

Hancock wonders what it’d be like to fall asleep in someone’s arms, no threat of raiders or nasty pests slinking in and trashing their shit, murdering them in their state of vulnerable unconsciousness. Nate knows the feeling, of course.

He doesn’t dwell. Instead, Hancock reaches for Nate’s pack at the side of the mattress and digs out his Pip-Boy, which he barely, _barely_ knows how to use, save for about three functions he’s watched Nate fiddle with. He clicks the volume down to the lowest setting before tuning into one of the several radio stations in the area— some swing tune that Hancock _knows_ Nate would be whistling along to, were he awake.

And then, he sits. Slouched into Nate a bit, able to feel the warmth of the man curled around him.

It’s not heart-throbbing romantic or anything, but it’s certainly something.

Still, _fuck_ anti-Ghoul laws, though, Hancock thinks bitterly, and spits towards the side of the room facing that piece of shit shantytown from earlier.

**Author's Note:**

> me: just writes shippy bullshit bc I am starving, famished, _desperate_ for more hancock/m!ss.


End file.
